


Limits

by Solemini (CyanHorne)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aftercare, Bondage, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Dom/sub, F/M, Femdom, Hurt/Comfort, PWP without Porn, Panic Attacks, Triggers, much less sexy than these tags make it seem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 19:51:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7401544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanHorne/pseuds/Solemini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy and Vex try something new, then deal with the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limits

**Author's Note:**

> Right then, just in case you didn't look at the tags: beware of in-universe triggering, Dom/Sub relationships, panic attacks, bondage, accidentally pushing the sub's limits and way less smut than you might be expecting.
> 
> Is emotion porn a thing? Because that's what this is. Emotion-porn. Enjoy.

They’re ten minutes into the scene when Percy stops breathing. 

Vex’ahlia stills the instant his bare chest stops, pectorals tense beneath her lips and his flushed skin. Her fingers uncurl from his waistband, abandoning the popped buttons and skittering from the marks her nails have left on his stomach.

An upwards glance finds Percy taut as a wire, arms twisted in the silk-lined iron cuffs so his hands can grasp the chain binding him to the headboard. Jaw clenched, spine curled, he tries to breathe but only manages a shallow gasp. His chest barely moves.

“Percy. What’s your status?” Vex sits up, now on high alert, hands braced against his abs for balance. Her hair, half-undone, tumbles over a bare shoulder and half-covers the stripped-down view of her brassiere and breeches. “Where’s your head, darling? Talk to me.”

“I…I don’t…” Percy jerks, elbows snapping to yank the chain. The headboard rattles but holds strong. He keens. “I-I can’t. I can’t, I— _Jenga_. Jenga jenga jenga.”

Vex is off him at the first safeword gasp, rolling from the bed to snatch the key off her nightstand. It takes fifteen seconds – fourteen too long – to free him and fling the unlatched cuffs unceremoniously out-of-sight.

Percy scrambles up the second he’s loose, going from lying to sitting and pressing his bare back against the stone wall. His right hand tears at the sheets, searching for the security of his gun though he _knows_ it’s been locked safe away while they’re together. Vex tosses him the dummy – a mock-up that clicks and moves but doesn’t fire, little more than a heavy metal toy – and backs away, hands raised to show that she is unarmed. That he is safe.

It hurts to see him like this, her brave gunslinger, half-naked and shaking with his eyes blown wide in fear. They’d been going for vulnerable, not wounded. Not exposed, gaping and festered. She’s faced animals like this, charmed wary wolves and battered bears into trust, but this is so much worse. If she’s hurt him…

She forces down her fears and keeps her next words soft. Even. Controlled, not controlling. “Darling. Tell me what you need. Glasses?”

He shakes his head, raking fingers through that pale hair as though afraid the force will shake it off his neck. The fake gun rattles against his temple. “J-Just keep talking.”

“Okay.” Vex’ahlia drifts close, steps soft and quiet. She kneels to collect their kit from under the bed. “Blanket?”

He nods. She unfurls the quilt that usually adorns his bed, a soft downy thing hand-stitched in a northern style. It settles over his bare feet only a moment before he drags it up to cover his legs. No further.

Vex remains kneeling, watching from a distance. Percy rests his head on his knees and breathes out more easily, but he’s still holding the fake gun.

“Do you need me to leave?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Okay. Drink some water.” She places the bloated waterskin at his side. He doesn’t move. “That wasn’t a suggestion, Percy. Drink. You need it.”

It takes another full-body gasp but he does as she asks, gulping from the skin until liquid runs down his cheeks and chin. After, he wipes his lip on a bare arm and sets both the water and the fake gun aside.

Vex rises to one knee and places a tentative hand on the mattress. “May I join you?”

Percy nods. She slides back onto the bed, setting an open box of dipped chocolates on the nightstand within reach. “May I touch you?”

Another nod. She cards her fingers through his hair, trails them feather-light down his neck and shoulders. Feels his shivering skin, its cooling heat, the last weak twitch of muscles pulled too tense, relaxing at last.

“May I hold you?”

“ _Please_.”

She gathers his head from his knees, tucks it against her shoulder, and pulls up the quilt to wrap around them both. Percy melts against her, at last on the verge of calm, coiling around until their legs entwine and he is as surrounded by her as his larger frame will allow.

Vex soothes him with gentle, formless sounds, stroking the white hair and rocking like a mother with her child. His third breath breaks into a not-quite laugh, not-quite sob. Her heart aches.

“Oh, my darling. My dearest.” She presses her lips to his hair and nuzzles her cheek to the crown of his skull. “You’re safe. You’re safe, you’re here, no one can hurt you.”

Her arms remain loose, though it goes against every instinct that screams to hold him close and never let go. He stays at his discretion, he leaves at his discretion. She’d expect no less, in his position.

“Do you know where you are, Percy?”

He nods against her shoulder, eyes still closed but expression now at peace. When next he speaks, it’s with new calm. “Tal’Dorei. Emon. Greyskull.”

“That’s right. And there are no dragons, no dungeons, no demons or undead. Just us. Just family.”

He keeps nodding, lulling himself with a steady rhythm in time with her heart. They stay like that until his breathing calms and his every muscle uncoils into relaxation. He sighs. “I think I’m all right now.”

He uncurls, sitting up and away but never quite leaving her reach. She moves with him, shifting from the headboard. The quilt slides around them in the start of a comforting nest. Exhaustion aches through her entire body, now that the adrenaline and fear has passed. It’s echoed in Percy’s face, only emphasized by the candlelight-traced premature lines around his eyes.

He meets her wandering eye and manages a small smile, which cracks into a self-depreciating half-laugh. “Gods, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Vex’ahlia takes his hand and massages the bruised wrist, working her way up his palm to the long fingers. “We both knew it was a risk.”

“But I _asked_ for it…”

“Shhhh.” She cups his cheek and draws him in, resting their foreheads together as she strokes his face. “You wanted to test your limits. We tested. Now we know: No more rope, no more chains.”

Another laugh, paper-soft. He covers her hand with his own and nuzzles into her palm, the brush of stubble against calluses a soft, familiar rasp. “I’m still sorry. I’m sorry I’m so fucked up.”

“ _Percival_.” The bite of his full name and her sharp tone – not quite the full dom-voice but close enough to catch his attention – draws his eyes up and open to meet her unwavering gaze. “This is not your fault. It is not your fault that they hurt you. That they left these scars.”

_That you were so young_.

Her throat closes around the unbidden thought, silencing it before unwise words can be spoken. She kisses his cheek instead, that familiar motion from their earliest days of flirting and friendship. A reminder of where they’ve been, how they’ve changed, how some things never change.

“I love you so much, darling. You know that, don’t you? Scars and all.”

He answers not with words, but by turning his head to catch her lips with his own. They’ll go no further than this tonight, no deeper than lips and mouths and hands above the belt and the taste of unspoken truths. There are always other nights, after all. For now, they have come this far together and that’s exactly how she intends to stay. 


End file.
